Chapter Two
As Jeff stepped in, he immediately
thought of stepping back out and just driving around the
neighborhood for a bit. He often did this after a rough day at work. Which was
pretty much every
day come to think of it he realized.
I would literally give my left
testicle to quit my job, he thought. As the matter of fact,
might as
well take both while your down there. Not like I've used either in the last ten
years
except
for the occasional release in the downstairs guest bathroom while pretending to
take a
shit. I
could never use "our" bathroom, which is really "her"
bathroom of course. She'd know.
Somehow.
She's demonically intuitive that way, he thought.
Most of my shit to get ready is in
the guest bathroom anyway, that way I don't disturbher
beauty rest while I get ready at 5pm in the fucking morning to make sure I'm at
myamazingly
rewarding job by six. Kids, wife, mortgage, car...I'd keep the first and burn
the ladderif I had
the chance.
"Honey, I'm home!" Jeff
said almost puking in his mouth as he usually does when shit
comes
out of it.
"It's about fucking time.
Jesus. What took you so long?" Jeff's wife Vicky asked. Were
you
driving around the block again? Charleen Becket said she sees you just driving
aimlessly
around
our block with that creepy dead expression on your face that you get all the
time."
Charleen Becket. Ever since her
husband left her, she's been keeping herself busy with the
personal lives of everyone else in the neighborhood, Jeff thought. And to think
that bitch waved at
me all four times I drove past her house the other day. It's funny the people
we pretend to be.
Just waiting for the chance to judge and cause chaos in the lives of others to
bring some kind of
validity and make some kind of sense out of the fucked up cards we were dealt.
Charleen Becket
probably feels she was dealt a shitty hand, but the truth is she squandered the
pocket aces she had
when she verbally abused her husband Phil to the point where he was willing to
loose everything
he had worked for in a divorce just to get the fuck away from her. I saw Phil
in downtown
LA not to long ago during my lunch break. He was wearing ratty, wrinkled cloths
and said he
had barely enough money to survive and that he was living in a piece of shit
studio in Little
Tokyo and that he hadn't been this happy in years...God, I envied him.
"You know I don't like it when
you cuss around our children," Jeff replied.
"Oh, I'm so sorry your
holiness. It's not like they don't hear it at school for Christ's sake," Vicky argued.
"I seem to recall Sarah's
teacher calling me last week to talk about Sarah's recent use of the word
you just used in front of her and where she might have heard such language. I
told herit
wasn't from me and it definitely couldn't have been from my saint of a
wife," Jeff saidfacetiously.
"You're such a fucking
hypocrite! You were screaming obscenities at the top of your
lungs
last sunday in front of David and the entire neighborhood as the matter of
fact," Vicky said raising
her voice.
"I drove a nail through my
thumb putting up his basketball hoop. I had to go to the
hospital,"
Jeff pointed out, trying to keep his cool.
"Semantics!" Vicky
screamed. "The point is, she could have heard those words anywhere and it's
not fair of you to put the blame on me. You blame me for everything that is
wrong in these
kids lives and I'm fucking sick of it."
You are literally to blame for every
drop of psychological damage these kids have
endured
during their very short existence on this planet, you complete fucking horror
of a
woman,
Jeff thought.
"Okay. Fine. They could have
heard it anywhere. Can we drop it, please?" Jeff said.
"Whatever. We have an hour to
get ready for the party next door. Please wear the new pinstripe
shirt and silk tie I bought you at Nordy's last weekend. I don't want our
outfits
clashing,"
Vicky mentioned as she walked out of the kitchen.
Jeff had just remembered where Vicky
was with the car when he put the nail through his thumb.
They used to have two cars but had to sell Vicky's BMW once they couldn't
afford the payments
anymore due to Vicky being an out of work Real Estate agent after the market
went to shit. He
remembered David coming out of the house after he called his Mom to tell her
what happened
and him saying that Mom said to take a cab to the hospital because she just
ordered lunch
and couldn't get back with the car...What a woman, Jeff thought. What would I
do without her.
Probably throw a fucking parade.
Jeff snapped out of it and realized he hadn't even had a chance to say hello to the only thing that mattered to him in life.
"So guys, how was your day?" Jeff asked in a chipper, suburbinite father fasion.